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Abel to Yzerman

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Far Flung Voices With Venom

You know what?  I think it’s time we took a little spin, a gander if you will.  A spin around the hockey world formerly known as the blogosphere.  Let’s make a few stops at some places we don’t typically take you to.

Ready?  Great.  And here’s a warning for all you elitists who get offended every time I pick on defenseless Dwayne Klessel, you might want to stop reading now.

We start in Hockeytown at the Detroit Sports Rag, with a Tuesday Mossism.  Don’t like Rob Parker?  Read the whole column.  Don’t care about Rob Parker, head to the bottom.  But be warned, if you’re a McCarty fan…you’re going to be a little irritated.

And if you’re an Yzerman fan, well….read for yourself.

No hyperbole here. If Sergei does return, it will be one of the Top Five happiest moments of my Detroit sports life.

If Fedorov returns AND the Wings win another Cup, it will be my #1 Detroit sports moment of all-time. I just hope they do it at home and I can witness Steve Yzerman watching the festivities in a business suit.

And McCarty? The guy is finished. He has nothing left and that was quite obvious when we was playing in Alberta.

Do I agree with him that Fedorov would add value to the Wings? Yes.  I’ve never been shy about discussing the idiotic treatment 91’s received since he left Detroit and I believe a return would make the Wings a real tough team to beat.  Is it painful to read someone so harshly critical of Darren McCarty’s personal life?  Yes.  Does it go against 19 different laws of nature for a Detroit blogger to write something critical of The Captain?  Oh yes.  But when it’s written well, and with some passion like that, it’s worth a read. 

Oh, as for Fedorov?  Columbus is about to hit full-on sell mode.

The Red Wings can take great comfort in knowing that they’re not the only team with high hopes mired in a slump.  In fact, the Halifax Mooseheads are using notable statesman Mike Babcock as a means of motivation.

“I’m concerned but I’m not panicked,” said Smith, a former NHLer who will be in Halifax with the team next week. “I’ve been around hockey a long time and I’ve seen lots of teams go through lots of spells like this. You’ve got to fight through them. I watched Mike Babcock (coach of the NHL-leading Detroit Red Wings) being interviewed last night. They’ve lost four straight. He said you’re cruising along and everything is going great and you feel like you need a little bit of adversity. Then when you’ve got it, you don’t know how to get out of it.”

Yeah, umm, I think the “adversity will be good for us in the long run” experiment has pretty much run its course. 

Pretending the average Nashville resident can read, Brett Hait covers Vanderbilt for the Nashville City Paper.  He penned a little ditty the day after Bubba’s defeat of the evil Wings on Tuesday and got all creative and stuff by comparing the hockey team an entire state ignores to the college basketball team that still hasn’t seen the light about the baby turd colored uniforms. 

On Lower Broadway, the Nashville Predators took on the Detroit Red Wings. A few miles away on West End Avenue, Memorial Gym was the site of a Vanderbilt-Kentucky basketball clash.

Long-time Nashvillians struggled to recall a winter night – or any night, for that matter – when two bigger games were played simultaneously in this city.

Looks good. Sounds good.  SEC hoops and Nashville hockey in the same sentence.  In the state of Tennessee, that’s something.  Right?

Yeah…ummm, not so fast.

Here’s what is surprising, if not stunning: In Nashville’s 49-county television viewer area, the basketball game drew a 5.5 television rating, while the hockey game came in at 0.1.

Point…proven.  There are 14,000 Predator fans in the state of Tennessee, and those are the people who care about that team.  No one…else…does.  No one.  And even the 14K can’t be expected to attend every home game.  I don’t care who owns, who buys, who plays for that team.  It makes no difference.  Nashville is not a hockey city, and that team has no place in that state.  The few fans they have are loyal and should be commended, but it’s not working.  And it’s time to move on.  Give Canada another team Gary.  Ass.

Oh, hey.  An A2Y reader sent me a link to the Klessel message board today.  Apparently some of his loyal paying customers are a little upset with The Wedding Singer.  Dominoes, apparently, are not falling at the pace with which The Anonymous Dwayne Klessel is predicting they would.  20 bucks is seeming like a bit much to a few who feel the money they’re paying just isn’t going as far as they thought it would.

My God Eklund, how is this an update? Why don’t you save your words and my reading time for when something actually does happen?

Just go back to making rumors up, it is more interesting even though you get called out by every media outlet with a legitimate hockey expert.

Crosby to LA e3, i am told that with the recent play of Malkin Shero thinks Crosby can help build a more rounded team. I am hearing Brown, Johnson, Cammalleri, and picks to all be in play.

UPDATE - Also hearing 28 other teams may be interested, talking to my sources

And that’s from a “season ticket holder.”

Well, in the midst of that heated discussion between Dwayne The Victim and some hostile loyalists, someone posted—or attempted to post—a link to something we wrote a few months ago, something harshly critical of Nostradomus Klessel.  Awww, thanks.  That’s nice of you. And on Valentine’s Day.  Problem is…someone edited the link after it was posted.  And that’s not the first time (Iwo5).  Apparently, previous attempts to link to URL’s with the Kukla name within them get edited as well.

http://www.nhl.com/index.php/A2Y/comments/conspiracies_abound/

Common, simple mistake.  Inserting NHL.com into the address.  For those of you wandering over here, heads hung in shame that you’re actually shelling out twenty bucks in beer money for fiction written at a 2nd grader’s level, here’s the actual link:  Conspiracies Abound

And for those of you tap, tap, tapping about how I should just shut about about Klessel.  Deal with it.  I have no plans to stop any time soon.  If you need me to give you evidence as to why the guy’s a fraud, read this.  Want more? .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and I’ll email you a novel.

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Comments

     

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The shame about Nashville is that the fans are dedicated, and will argue that it takes a generation to establish a fan base - they really believe that their sever and eight-year old kids who love hockey will grow up to be season-ticket holders, and they may very well be right about that.

I haven’t heard many dispute that a fan base takes time to develop.  I certainly don’t.

The problem is that the owner of the team may not be willing or even able to withstand losses for an additional decade (or more) with the hopes of a future return.  The goal of the NHL is (maybe?) to have a viable franchise in Nashville (and in other non-traditional markets), but that is borderline irrelevant if the owner of the team can’t afford to wait 20 years until the kids grow up, and then hope they A. remain hockey fans, B. stay in the area and find stable jobs, and C. choose to buy season tickets to the team they grew up watching.

If he can’t afford to wait 20 years, he won’t.

Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 02/14/08 at 05:42 PM ET

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You know, the funniest thing about the whole Dwayne Klessel debacle, is that he not only pretends to have insider sources, he also pretends to be Canadian by spelling rumor, rumour, almost everytime.  Seriously??? I almost would feel bad for the guy for being so delusional if he wasn’t stealing people’s money.

BTW, if it isn’t too much trouble I’d be interested in that novel you are offering.

Posted by Chris from Grand Rapids on 02/14/08 at 06:09 PM ET

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BTW - my email is .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Posted by Chris from Grand Rapids on 02/14/08 at 06:18 PM ET

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Here’s an example Kessel’s identity crisis.

http://www.hockeybuzz.com/blog.php?post_id=13045

Posted by Chris from Grand Rapids on 02/14/08 at 06:41 PM ET

     

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Welcome to Abel to Yzerman, a Red Wing blog since 1977.  No other site on the internet has better-researched, fact-laden and better prepared discussions than A2Y.  Re-phrase: we do little research, find facts and stats highly overrated and claim little to no preparation.  There are 19 readers of A2Y. No more, no less. All of them, except maybe one, are juvenile in nature.  Reminding them of that in the comment section will only encourage them to prove that. Your suggestions and critiques are welcome: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

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